Join me as I half-ass my way through medical school, encountering all sorts of freaks (patients, classmates, myself, etc.) along the way

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Third Year: The Tale of the Tape

While I hope to have a more eloquent recap coming soon, I thought I’d start my reminiscing about the glory that was this past academic year by turning it into a series of useless numbers, much like I did at around this time last year. So please, enjoy these numbers, enjoy their meaning, and enjoy the fact that I am spending a solid 30 minutes of my two day summer vacation writing this up. SUMMER BREAK WOOO!!!

Number of clinical rotations completed: 7Number of weeks in the third year: 54Number of extra weeks there are in the third year of medical school that are not in the Gregorian definition of a year: 2Number of hospitals I worked in: 7Amount of times I experienced food poisoning from the hospital cafeteria: 2Collective minutes spent hiding in various hospital bathrooms: 3,640Instances in which I was told by patients that I looked like Matthew Perry: 4Times I muttered “kill me now” under my breath: 84,239Text pages I sent to friends that included the phrase “Kill Me Now” or “KMN”: 847Number of prank pages received or sent: 231Number of pages received from Dr. Poon: 15Number of pages returned to Dr. Poon from a Dr. F. Taco: 16Number of legitimate, medically related pages I received during the entire year: 5Doomed romantic encounters I had with my female superiors that ended abruptly and about as predictably as the pending Cruise-Holmes break up (oh c’mon, like you aren’t expecting it): 1Nurses who gave me unwarranted and excessive attitude: 3Nurses who gave me some suga’: All the rest – love ya!Average number of hours of sleep during call nights on Surgery and Ob-GYN: 2.3Times I made it through an entire call night without sleeping at all: 2Average number of consecutive hours spent in the hospital during a call night: 27By law, maximum number of consecutive hours one can spend at the hospital: 30By law, maximum number of hours per week one can work at the hospital: 80Longest amount of consecutive hours spent at the hospital: 32Largest collective number of hours spent at the hospital in one week: 107Times I felt woozy driving home post-call: 3Number of celebrities seen during three weeks of inpatient pediatrics at one local hospital: 4 (umm…excluding me, of course)Number of celebrities seen during months spent at various county hospitals: 0Patients who refused to let me be in the OR regardless of the fact that it was made clear I would not be within 5 feet of anything important: 1Patients who refused to be seen by me in clinic because I was a student: 14Rectal exams performed: 46Pelvic exams performed: 22Testicular exams performed: 15Breast exams performed: 25Breast exams performed on fake breasts: 2 (they’re like rocks, people)Life saving maneuvers performed on Natalie Portman, who tragically fell ill and required resuscitation from a dashing young medical student: 0Times I caught myself daydreaming about the previous scenario during my neurology rotation: 3Approximate number of times I recall regretting going to medical school: 55Number of jobs offered to me contingent on me quitting medicine: 1Times I actually looked into what is required to drop out of medical school: 0Times I can recall being verbally humiliated by my superiors in front of my peers and other superiors: 2Hours spent giving these assholes the evil eye: 3Number of times I can honestly and vividly recall those profound, privileged moments in medicine, those moments so regularly dramatized in those awful medical shows you people watch that so rarely happen but are the only things keeping me here and sane: 2Number of my patients who died before my eyes: 4Patients who expressed to me a gratitude for their care that was genuinely moving: 10Number of days I called in sick: 0Number of times I told people that I was busy saving lives: 748Number of lives saved by me: 0Times spent at Starbucks with my "Medicine" sweatshirt and/or scrubs on: 56Times I hoped some hot undergrad female would notice me with my medical school paraphenalia and hit on me: 56Times that actually happened: That depends on how you define "hit on".Number of schizophrenics I saw both roaming the local Starbucks and as a patient in the psychiatric ward: 1Blood pressure medications taken prior to starting third year: 0Blood pressure medications I currently take every day: 2Number of specialties and sub-specialties I considered: 23Number of specialties I am currently considering: 3Number of book deals offered to me as a result of this blog: 0Number of times I have prayed to get an email from someone offering me a lot of money to write a book based on this blog: 365Months until I am a fake doctor no more: 10Number of people who should be horribly frightened by the previous sentence: about 250,000,000

I'm afraid of what would happen if I tried to quantify that for me. And just wait until residency. I think I ask someone (God, fellow residents, nurses, etc) to "kill me now" at least once a day, more if I'm on call.

I have finally finished the Evil AMCAS crapplication, and I'm currently filling out the Columbia secondary app. Pretty much, I'm restating what I already said on my AMCAS application. You are awesome. Keep up the blog! I'll need some sense of humor this year.

I have to tell you residents are the most anoying people I have even encountered in my entire life..my son's disease is very rare and they just anoy the hell out of me. your blog is funny I'm not being mean but damn you can spot the newbies right off and really mess with them...the joy you find while spending a lot of time in a hospital..good luck!

First of all, you're obviously not *that* much of an expert in spite of your condescending tone. The FAKE doctor (how more clear can he be?) is not a resident. He is a medical student, doing rotations in a hospital. A resident has graduated from medical school, and is an MD.

And if it weren't for residents, your son would likely not be here today. Who the hell do you think becomes the staff doctors? Do you think we're freaking hatched fully trained?

Signed,

ER Resident coming off night shift and easily pissed at the patients and their families that treat her like shit.

"I haven't seen the evidence myself; the buyers who looked at the Milos Forman biopic Goya's Ghost in Cannes (where uber-producer Saul Zaentz was ensonced at the Majestic) saw selected footage. So I'm dutifully passing on a Page Six item, via LA Fishbowl asserting that the lissome lass bares all in this serious drama, which stars Stellan Skarsgard (great in Pirates 2) as the painter Goya and Javier Bardem as a monk. Judging from the Art Film credentials of this production (these are the people who brought you One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, for example), it does not sound like a titillating context, frankly."

Write the book already. You're too damned funny not to. Or write a script. Something. If You me and Dupree is gonna' be the biggest new comedy debuting this week, there is a place for you somewhere. In the meantime, in one year, your standing in the female jewish woman community will leap up approximately 5,432 percent. So I've heard.

Add this stat too:Number of times you gave me a good laugh over the past year while having a peak at your blog at the end of the working day from this hellhole in Africa: dozens and dozens of times.Great blog, keep up the good work, and good luck for the next 10 months!

It's funny because IT'S ALL TRUE! We have a name for people who go around saying they're too busy saving lives/keeping people alive. We call them anaesthetists (to their face - wankers behind their backs). And what is it with the cafeteria? I've had food poisoning from my hospital's cafeteria 5 times - seriously!

quite funny..Your combined experiences are quite impressive,you'll make a good doc. # of times anyone has ever upchucked/performed other bodily functions on ya?(perhaps you'd rather not answer this question-I understand, but I'm still curious as to whether med students get a healthy dose of it) EMT's/nurses sure do.